Comment While the ultimate environmental impacts of BP's Deepwater Horizon Oil spill won't be known for ages, reports are already emerging about immediate damage to the Gulf's natural food chain.
Researchers at the spill site are speaking of a “ripple effect” resulting from the spill.
When 180 million-plus gallons of oil contaminate an area with as diverse plant and animal life as the Gulf, it has a two-fold effect.
The first is the most obvious: it's killing off a slew of animals. The second is less visible: the oil is increasing the prevalence of certain species, ones that are more adept at surviving in toxic environments.
It begins at the lowest levels of the food web, with tiny phytoplankton. The oil slick has blacked out the sunlight that the tiny creatures need to survive. Phytoplankton feed the smallest fish, which in turn feed larger fish like red snapper... and while I'm no marine biologist, I can easily see how this pattern could continue on to rather devastating effect.
One species that is dying off in record numbers is the pyrosome — a kind of half-jellyfish, half-cucumber organism. Researchers found thousands of the creatures dead and bloated, floating around the spill site.
a pyrosome
The endangered sea turtle relies on the pyrosome for food, as do larger fish like tuna. So continues the ripple effect...
According to an AP report, there is currently no other explanation for the rise in pyrosome deaths other than oil toxicity.
That while that toxicity is killing off organisms like the pyrosome, it's actually causing certain types of bacteria to thrive. Vibrio parahaemolyticus, for example, is a microbe that feeds off of oil.
"You can feed it exclusively oil," Jay Grimes, a University of Southern Mississippi marine microbiologist told the New York Times.
You may have experienced the business end of Vibrio parahaemolyticus if you've felt a bit queasy after slurping back some raw oysters. So it stands to reason that explosive growth of such a bacteria could imperil the Gulf's already reeling seafood industry.
Microbiologists like Grimes seem uncertain as to what effects these changes will ultimately have on the Gulf's delicate food web.
Time will tell, but the fact that researchers have already seen such a dramatic shift doesn't bode well for the Gulf's natural equilibrium...
Be Well,
Jimmy
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